Dearly Beloved
by aikotters
Summary: For Daisuke, the dating world has easily been eclipsed by the culinary one and that's just how he likes it. Except even Ken is starting to get annoyed at him. So when in doubt, get help. The only real problem is: who was he set up with? And why won't she take off her hat? Part of In Prayer.


_Tags: Bisexuality, awkwardness, injury._

* * *

0.

Ichijouji Ken loved Motomiya Daisuke in many ways. Some of them platonic, some of them distinctly were not. That said, loving someone like that did not mean he could not, nor would not, get annoyed with him.

Being woken up due to time zone differences and having to hear a solid half an hour about the many ways Mimi tried to draw him onto her show as a guest speaker was a very good reason to be annoyed with him. However, Ken, when he was annoyed early in the middle of the night, had a tendency to just turn off the source of his problems and deal with it in the morning. By the time he had figured out it was Daisuke, however, it was dead o' clock at night and his cell phone was telling him it was much too tired to have an extended conversation with him. So he didn't.

The next morning he texted back an apology (stupid international fees anyway) and only got an exasperated sigh emoji in reply.

Miyako, being more inclined to be sympathetic to Ken, as they lived together, shook her head in amusement. "He's not going to stop."

Ken looked at her with a fond, exhausted exasperation. "I know that."

"You've gotta tell him." Miyako sounded fond, but then she would. "He's a good-tempered puppy, he'll be fine."

"And who will he tell next?" Ken rubbed his eyes. "You? Takeru? Iori? He refuses to bring this up to Hikari-san-"

"All because you men are afraid Hikari-chan is a glass figurine."

Ken tried to ignore her because of the tiny bitter note that said Hikari was the least like glass. He reached out and pressed his lips to her cheek. He pulled away and watched the expression on her face soften to allow her to reach out and touch her own face. "None of you are glass," he replied, voice gentle and soft. "He's merely embarrassed, that's all."

"He was eleven," Miyako grumbled, still appeased by the unspoken apology. "We all did stupid crap when we were eleven."

"Still awkward for him."

"I suppose." They sat quietly for a little while, Ken on his phone and Miyako on hers. Then Miyako said, so quietly it might not have been said at all. "What if he's not interested in having a relationship?"

Ken didn't laugh. Takeru would have but Takeru was notoriously tactless and bemused at the thought of certain people not wanting such a thing, no matter how accepting he was of it being the case with other people. Daisuke was one of those people, really. Ken merely shook his head, deep in thought. "If anything," he said after a while of contemplation. "If that's so, then nothing's changed. He's still Daisuke. We'll have to help him… figure out what he's going to do. But he's still Daisuke."

Miyako snorted. "I wasn't saying he wasn't."

"I know."

Miyako reached out but Ken was that little bit faster. He squeezed her hand. "I don't love him anymore, in that way."

"I was going to say that I didn't either." Her face turned cross for the briefest of moments. Then they both laughed at each other like a couple of loons.

"But we do love him," Miyako continued, thinking it over.

"How could we not?" Ken's voice was fond as she leaned into his shoulder and he into hers. "He's Motomiya Daisuke. It's just a shame other people can't see how amazing that is."

"Honestly you're right." Miyako couldn't help but grin. "Hikari-chan missed out."

"Not in my own opinion."

Miyako jumped in her seat, whipping around to see Yagami Hikari sitting on their kitchen counter with her newest camera and a notebook. She also had one of her favorite smirks on, the one that promised blackmail and retribution if crossed incorrectly.

That said, she was also alone, obviously, painfully alone.

"Hikari-chan what the heck?" She turned to look at Ken, who was laughing way harder than he should be, which meant he had seen her sneak in here like the cat that she was. "Oh buzz off, Ken."

Ken wiped his eyes on his sleeve, still laughing. "Sorry…we were just being so serious."

"And it was nothing I didn't guess at anyway." Hikari smiled a bit, looking not even slightly downtrodden. She lowered her camera a moment. "Daisuke-kun hasn't gone out in a while, has he?"

"He's been working hard at school in America to be fair," Ken offered. "He doesn't have time."

"Neither do we," Hikari mused. "I'm not interested either, and I haven't blown up Takeru-kun's phone in two months."

All three of them shared a grin. Because no one said a thing about the other way around.

"We can't help Daisuke from across the ocean," Miyako said, murdering the mood with an axe.

"Sure we can," Hikari said. "We just have to wait for him to find a date."

Ken groaned before he could quite control himself. "This will take a while."

* * *

Daisuke stopped checking his phone. If Ken hadn't answered by now, he wouldn't and that was fair enough really.

Okay it really wasn't and it wasn't cool. Was he really that annoying?

"You text him late at night, even for him," he reminded himself, and it stung, especially when he knew Miyako had stolen his phone and told him as kindly as she could (she was Miyako after all) to take a rest.

So the New York rain was all of a sudden worse than ever. And he had a long few train rides back to his apartment.

Or at least, he would have, if he hadn't nearly tripped over someone waterlogged and barely breathing.

Then he was running towards the nearest hospital and regretting with all of his soul that he hadn't told V-mon to practice his spices at home and to come with him to class instead.

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 _ **A/N:** _And another Daisuke fic. Can anyone stop me? Answer, no. Give the boy some well-characterized love, as you do. :D

Challenges: Novella Masterclass (02 list) 2, Diversity Writing I44


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